Las Vegas Weekly

December 19, 2008 · 1:13 PM

Sinatra family will be first guests at new Sinatra restaurant in the Encore

By Robin Leach

Frank Sinatra.

Photo: www.franksinatrafans.com

The first three people to get an advance look at Steve Wynn’s new Sinatra restaurant tomorrow in the Encore before Monday’s official 8 p.m. opening will be Ol’ Blue Eyes’ son Frank Jr. and two daughters Tina and Nancy. The private dining area, which is called the Boardroom where they will munch their way through the Italian menu, features a photograph of Steve and Frank together. They shot it many years ago for the cover of an Atlantic City magazine.

Steve showed me the restaurant, which truly is a work of beauty in vibrant orange and green colors. We sat by the restaurant’s spectacular flower garden that you can see in our exclusive video interview. Click HERE to listen to Steve explain how he spent one night alone in his own office with the Oscar that Frank won for his role in From Here to Eternity. He told me that he smoked a cigar and turned the gold statuette around so it could face in the direction of his prized artworks, including “Le Reve,” for which he named his Wynn water show.

The statue and other valuable, prized Sinatra memorabilia, including Emmy and Grammy awards, will be discreetly displayed in a special locked cabinet bolted into the bar with shatterproof glass so nobody’s tempted to heist it.

“Before the cabinet was specially built, it sat on my desk and I had four security guards sit watching it when I left for the night,” Steve said. “I got four hours of Sinatra tapes never heard before. I listened to them, smoked my cigar and almost cried. I was never so happy.”

Steve says you’ll actually be able to hear Frank introduce the records himself. “He was in the recording studio one day, and the engineer recorded him talking about all of his own favorite songs, his favorite Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Nat King Cole numbers. Thank goodness they kept that recording for posterity. It was never heard publicly, but his children wanted me to have it -- and we’ve edited it to serve as introductions to the music we’ll play in our new restaurant. Sinatra has become the DJ for the joint, and it sounds as if he’s alive and actually there with us. Frank is gone, but the memories will live forever now. Our relationship was very real.”

The chef for Sinatra is Theo Schoenegger from Patina restaurant at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Coincidentally, his birthday is the same date as Ol’ Blue Eyes’!

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